much, but it was just a dream. I promise I’ll go get help. I’ll go see someone.”
Josh relaxed and gathered Sarah into his arms.
“Okay, baby. I’ll make sure we get you some help. But get dressed first. We’re going to buy you a gun.”
CHAPTER TEN
On the way to American Marksman they stopped at the hotel to get Josh’s paycheck. A white F-350 pickup truck cut them off as they drove up the ramp to the second-floor parking level and Josh had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting them. Josh leaned on the horn and the three rednecks in the car glared at him and the driver flipped him off. Sarah winced. That was one thing you didn’t do to Josh. He was not the most even-tempered guy to begin with and disrespecting him when you were in the wrong brought out his violent side. Josh was out of the car before Sarah could restrain him.
“You could have fucking killed us!”
“Fuck you! You should have been watching where you were going.”
Josh walked right up to the car and put his foot into the driver’s-side door, leaving a huge dent. The three occupants of the car leaped out. The driver was the closest to Josh and the minute he stepped out of the car Josh launched a fist into the man’s temple, knocking him cold. The passenger door closest to him had opened at the same time but the tall skinny guy in the backseat had been a little slower getting out, giving him an extra thirty seconds before Josh smeared his nose all over his face in an explosion of blood that gushed down his face, turning his white T-shirt crimson. The passenger door on the other side of the truck had opened at the same time but the overweight guy in the black and blue NASCAR hat and the multicolored Hawaiian shirt with topless hula dancers on it was in no hurry to join his friends. He held up his hands as he walked around the truck as if Josh were aiming a gun at him.
“It’s cool, man. It’s cool.”
Sarah knew that he wanted to hit the guy anyway. Josh turned reluctantly and walked back to the car. It was this side of Josh that made people certain that he abused her until they saw them together. As big and mean as her husband was, he was a teddy bear with her.
They parked in front of the hotel valet and Josh let one of the attendants know that he was just picking up his check and would be leaving in minutes, then jogged into the casino while Sarah waited for him in the car. Sarah thought about Josh beating up those two guys and began to laugh. This wasn’t the first time she’d seen him beat the crap out of someone. It had been a regular part of Saturday nights back in college. If he wasn’t getting into fights on the ice during one of his hockey games he was fighting someone in a bar or a movie theater or just walking down the street. The funny thing was that he never set out to start the fights. Guys just liked fucking with him. They felt they had to prove their manhood by challenging the biggest guy in the room, which was usually Josh. Something about Sarah’s husband apparently threatened most men. It was even worse when the guys were drunk and feeling ten feet tall and bulletproof. Josh never hesitated to rip the
It was hard for Sarah to rectify the softhearted gentleman she knew with the guy who had just minutes ago knocked out two guys in the parking garage. But Sarah loved the fact that he had that in him. It made her feel safe and, truth be told, it turned her on more than a little bit.
Josh returned to the car and after tipping the valet for letting him leave his car there, he drove out of the garage and back onto Las Vegas Boulevard. The 215 expressway was only a couple blocks away and soon they were headed southwest at seventy miles per hour. It took them less than twenty minutes to make it across town and soon they were exiting the freeway on Eastern Avenue.
American Marksman was a big store that looked like a supermarket from the outside; located in a strip mall on Eastern Avenue, it was by far the biggest store on the block. Sarah was surprised by how many people were packed into the store shopping with their families. Apparently, small-town folks weren’t the only people who clung to guns when the economy went bad.
Some of them had infants in strollers as if they were just out bargain hunting at Wal-Mart. She was even more surprised by the number of single women, young and old, shopping for handguns, rifles, and shotguns. There were the typical rednecks, cops, and wannabe gangsters too. She wondered how often criminals were in here shopping for guns right alongside the cops who would later arrest them?
Josh and Sarah walked over to one of the many display cases. A salesman with a thick Alabama accent walked over to them.
“Good morning. What can I do ya fer?”
“I’m looking for a handgun for my wife.”
“Something little?”
“No. Something big,” Sarah said.
Both Josh and the salesman looked at her, surprised.
“Well, okay then little lady. You ever handled a weapon before?”
“My father was a lifetime NRA member. He taught all of us how to shoot. It’s been about fifteen or twenty years though, so I’m sure I’m rusty.”
“You wantin’ this for home protection or to carry around witcha?”
Sarah looked at Josh, who shrugged in response.
“Home, I guess.”
“Then how about a .38 Special? Smith and Wesson makes a nice one and it’s relatively cheap.”
“I don’t want a revolver.”
“Okay. Well, the customer’s always right.” He reached under the counter and took out a small semiautomatic. “How about a .380? It has about the same stopping power as a .38.”
“Too small. I want to put a big-ass hole in whatever I shoot at.”
Sarah didn’t smile when she spoke.
“Then you want a .40. It has more stopping power than the nine-millimeter but it doesn’t have the extra kick of a .44. Glock and Sig Sauer make nice ones but they’re pretty pricey. We do have a used Sig on sale for five hundred dollars.”
“That’s a sale? How much is it regular price?”
“Nine hundred dollars.”
“Wow. I guess that is a sale then.” She turned to Josh. “Can we afford it?”
“Well, the mortgage is paid and we don’t have a car payment. We’ll have to tighten the belts a bit but, yeah, we can afford it.”
“Then that’s what I want.”
“How many bullets you want?”
“I want two or three boxes so I can practice.”
“How about two boxes of target ammo and then a box of hollow points for that stopping power ya want? How’s that sound?”
“That sounds about right.”
“You want to try it out first? We got an indoor range here in the back.”
“Sounds like a great idea to me. What do you say?” Josh said.
Sarah shrugged.
“Then let’s go for it. I guess.”
The salesman handed them both a pair of plastic goggles, headphones, and a couple of paper targets with a bull’s-eye in the center.
“Do you have any of those targets that look like people?”
The salesman cocked an eyebrow at her, then looked at Josh as if to say, “Are you sure you know what you’re doin’ here, buddy?”
Josh held up his hands in surrender.
“Yeah. They’s two dollars a piece.”
“I’ll take five.”
The salesman shook his head and took five targets out of a cabinet behind the counter. The targets had
